


My Love is Like to Ice (and I to Fire)

by Niki



Series: Ancient Alien Aphrodisiac [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Established Relationship, First Kiss, Flirting, Hypothermia, Leviathan - Freeform, M/M, Nightmares, cuddling for warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is the new response to any medical problem I have going to be 'apply naked Kaidan'?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kaidan

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the first line from a poem by Edmund Spenser.
> 
> This was originally two different stories written for hc_bingo (prompts: cuddling and tentacles) but I combined them and added the chapters about Steve and James.

By the time they got Shepard off the ship on 2181 Despoina and into the Kodiak he had stopped shivering, and Kaidan worried they wouldn't reach the Normandy fast enough to prevent his hypothermia from turning severe.

Seems their battle armours didn't quite carry enough insulation to protect someone while deep sea diving, who knew? At least the modified mech had kept the Commander safe from the pressure underwater but the cold was now taking its toll.

“Help me get this armour off,” he told Lieutenant Vega, and helped the barely conscious Shepard lie down on his back. 

Subzero field survival 101, shared body heat. He rummaged through the storage compartment until he found an emergency blanket, then started stripping off his own armour. By the time he was down to his Alliance issue boxer briefs, Vega was stripping Shepard's underarmour off.

Without ceremony Kaidan lay down next to Shepard and wrapped the blanket around them. Damn, but the man was cold. He had to fight to keep from shivering himself.

“You want me to...?” Vega asked hesitantly, gesturing with his hand when he couldn't quite figure out how to word his question.

“There's only enough room for two,” Kaidan said, wrapping his arms around Shepard, and Vega reached to wrap the displaced blanket more securely around them.

Shepard turned to burrow closer, and Kaidan didn't know if it was an instinctive reaction to seek the nearest source of warmth, or if he actually knew who he was cuddling. 

“I know I always complain about your icy feet but this is a bit extreme,” he whispered into an icy ear next to his mouth. 

Shepard started shivering again, and he nearly smiled in relief. Not too far gone, then. He pulled the other man even closer, working a thigh in between his legs, directing his warming efforts to his armpits and groin for maximum efficiency. 

Shepard seemed more active by the minute, and Kaidan felt a kiss against his neck. Good thing Shepard was providing a cold treatment while doing it, because despite the circumstances, it felt good.

“Is the new response to any medical problem I have going to be 'apply naked Kaidan?',” Shepard muttered against his neck, and he couldn't help but laugh.

“Hey, when you find something that works...”

“I would like to say something like 'it's working, all right' with a leer, but I think we both know I'm not up to taking advantage of your sudden undressed state. What's our status?”

“ETA to Normandy ten minutes,” said Cortez, and damn, they could hear them so well? 

“The Leviathan seems to be in control of the Reaper forces,” Vega reported. “You just worry about getting warm again, Loco.”

It's not like they didn't both already know but Kaidan was still suddenly much more self-conscious about his sudden undressed state as well as the nearly naked Shepard in his arms. 

“Oh, I'm quite happy where I am,” Shepard said dryly, and buried his head against Kaidan's neck again. 

“Icy. Feet,” Kaidan repeated, disdainfully, but pulled him closer anyway.


	2. James

It wasn't every day you saw your commanding officer walk through his ship in his underwear, much less in the company of his... what? Boyfriend? Who just happened to be the highest ranking officer on the ship and a fellow Spectre.

But at least Loco was walking under his own steam, even if the Major forced him to hang on to the silver blanket. 

Esteban was looking after them with a worried expression.

“What did Loco mean?” he asked before the older man could turn back to perform his post-flight check on the Kodiak. At least it really needed all that extra work this time.

“Huh?”

“When he talked about the new standard treatment of applying naked Alenko? Like it was a thing?”

Esteban looked like he was about to blush, but of course it wouldn't show on his skin. 

“What?” he asked, intrigued.

“The... incident, on the Prothean site?” 

“What about that? He get hypothermia then, too?” No, that didn't make sense, Loco was obviously referring to a different medical problem. 

“I... You will never tell anyone anything about what I'm going to share with you, okay?”

“My word, Esteban,” he said, frowning. 

“Come on, I think we need a drink for this.”

James kept frowning, but followed the man to his stash.

“The Prothean site had a... machine that affected Shepard because of the Prothean data he has in his brain after the time he went against the Reapers the first time.”

“The rogue Spectre and his Reaper ship, yeah.”

“And it... uhh... Javik called it 'Dance of Union'. It was basically a really, really strong aphrodisiac.”

“Holy shit!”

“To make it worse, it wasn't really something you could... take care on your own, so we... Doctors Chakwas and T'Soni, EDI and the Major and me had to come up with someone to help.”

“Apply naked Alenko. Holy hell, I didn't really need to know that.”

“No, you didn't. But I know you, as soon as you start wondering about something you will worry at it like a dog with a bone, and I figured telling you would be the most painless way out.”

“So they weren't together before?”

“No.”

“But they are now.”

“Apparently, it was a _really_ effective cure.”

“So... if you had sent someone else to take care of his little problem...”

“It's not like they're together because they had sex, they're together because they care about each other.”

“Yeah, I get that, Loco's been... hell, I'd go as far as saying he's been happy, despite all of this crap. Reapers. Earth, all that.”

“Yeah, we should all be so lucky.” Esteban sounded a little wistful, and James didn't want him to get lost in his thoughts of Robert. 

“You want any help with the Kodiak?” he asked the first thing that came to mind to distract the man.

“The day I let you touch the Kodiak is the day they bury me, Vega,” he said, laughing like it was the most hilarious thing he'd heard all day. 

So maybe he wasn't so good at machines. At least he had succeeded in distracting the man. 

“Fine, I'll keep you company and distract you with wild stories.”

“That you can do with alarming competence,” Esteban said, sounding too serious all of a sudden.

“Keep you company?”

“Distract me.”


	3. Shepard

Doctor Chakwas had not even raised an eyebrow when Shepard and Kaidan turned up in the medbay in their underwear. Shepard decided he preferred to think that EDI had warned her instead of her expecting such a thing as a normal course of action. 

She ordered him into bed with a hot water bottle. 

“I think a Major with biotic body temperature will work as well,” she added, and there was that damn smirk again. 

Still, it was one advice Shepard wasn't against taking. He had earned the rest of the day off, seriously, and he didn't feel well enough to even start going through the implications of what he'd learned. 

Also, he was not going to go talk to Hackett in his underwear. He wrapped the emergency blanket around himself again, and preceded Kaidan out of the door and into the lift. Kaidan seemed surprisingly casual about walking through the ship half-naked. 

Well, with a body like his...

“How are you feeling, really?” Kaidan asked as soon as the lift door closed behind them.

“Scared.”

\- - - -

_He is back there – in the cold and dark, his head filled with the endless blackness, and the tentacled creature is going through his mind as if it is as empty as the sea._

_But the sea isn't empty, it is filled with creatures you cannot even imagine in your worst nightmares, creatures older than you can ever understand, and their sheer presence is more than a mere human mind can stand._

Shepard woke up with a jerk, drenched in sweat, and his sudden movement woke up Kaidan, who was wrapped around him like another blanket. Even though his body was warm, all Shepard could feel was the cold darkness underwater. 

“You okay?” Kaidan muttered, still holding him, and Shepard turned into the hug, hiding his face against the other man's neck. 

He could vaguely remember sleeping like this with his mother before her death, hiding from a nightmare, or just snuggling in for warmth in the unheated ruins they often slept in. It felt almost as safe, too, and the darkness receded, at least for a moment. 

“Nightmare,” he admitted.

“The same one?”

“No... almost made me miss the Forest of the Dead and the damn Burning Kid.”

“Leviathan?” Maybe it wasn't such a stretch, really, but he appreciated the quick mind of his lover.

“It was... inside my head. That's how we... spoke. I felt the same cold, dark feeling the others were describing. It was... It was horrible, like feeling their slimy tentacles taking my head apart. They wanted to keep me down there,” he admitted quietly, and Kaidan pulled him even closer against him.

“Let me guess,” he said with a lightness that sounded just a little forced. “You talked them out of it.”

“I reminded them that the Reapers knew where they were so they couldn't hope to hide anymore. But it was so close, Kaidan... I was helpless. I was just a tool. They were so immensely powerful. And they are out there. With their artefacts they can take control of anyone, no matter how far, and... I know we share an enemy now, but what about after?”

“Let's just... worry about the Reapers first. That's enough stress for anyone, surely.”

“I wish I could forget the cold,” Shepard said, and shuddered, but not remembering the physical cold that had threatened his health. 

“What do you need?” Kaidan asked, and he loved the man so desperately for being there, for being who he is, for saving him time and time again... 

“Just hold me,” he replied, and turned his head for a kiss.

“Shepard... your nose is bleeding.”

That got him up and out of the bed. He ran to the head to check his face in the mirror. 

He hadn't even felt it. But did that mean it had been real? He really had been back in the mental place the Leviathan locked their controlled slaves in? But how was that possible without an artefact? They didn't have one on board, did they?

He realised he was starting to get paranoid, and forced himself to clean the blood off his face with short, economic movements, fighting the shudder. 

When he turned, Kaidan was standing by the door, just looking at him.

“It's just a nosebleed,” he said quietly, and stepped closer to pull Shepard into another warm hug. 

“Yeah... just a nosebleed.”

But he could hear the echo of Matriarch Benezia's last words in his mind. “His teeth are in my ear...” Their shadowy tentacles were in his mind, curled around his thoughts, always waiting... 

He'd burn the bastards out! He turned his head, and kissed Kaidan roughly, mouth open and desperate, and the other man was there, meeting him kiss for kiss, willing as ever to give him whatever he needed. 

“Apply naked Kaidan...” he muttered against his lips, and Kaidan laughed.

“Hey, if it works, why change it?”

“I need you,” Shepard admitted, as if his body wasn't screaming it loudly enough.

“I'm here,” Kaidan said, simply.

“Well, I'd much rather you were in the bed,” he said, forcing a grin.

“As you wish,” Kaidan replied with a grin of his own, but didn't let go of him.

He slid his hands down Shepard's back to his ass, and pushed until he took the hint and, laughing, wrapped his legs around his waist so Kaidan could carry him to bed. Yeah, okay, it was a bit of a turn on to be with someone strong enough to carry him around like a princess without breaking sweat. 

He laughed all the way to the bed, love and joy filling the cold places in his mind, and when Kaidan moved to drop him, he pulled the other man down with him, on top of him, and let him kiss the smile off his face and the cold away from his bones.


	4. Steve

“Can you hold this for me?” Steve asked, and James shot up from the crate he had been sitting on.

“Ah, so you can use me for something,” he said, grinning, and Steve had to wonder if the younger man was doing it on purpose.

He'd seen James flirt, and it was usually about as subtle as a Brute attack but this... 

“I can think of several things I could use you for,” he said dryly, and moved to the side so that James could step closer to keep the part steady for him to weld.

“Oh, do tell,” James said, and with that grin that was so flirting.

“How about I show you instead,” he said, and pulled the other man close, never mind the Kodiak for now. 

James yelped but came, his body settling against his as Steve kissed him lightly on the lips. He pulled back almost instantly to gauge his reaction. Had he just screwed up their effortless friendship? Was he going to get a, 'flattered but not my type, Esteban' speech? 

It was hard to tell, James' face was almost blank, and Steve took a step back.

“Am I just a distraction, Esteban?” James asked quietly, almost sadly. 

“Do you seriously think I'd risk our friendship for a distraction? Even a damn fine one?”

“Yeah, okay,” James said, grinned, and pulled him close for a deeper kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most amusing typo of the day “apply baked Kaidan.”


End file.
